"What's exciting for Maggie now is she's still trying to find a sense of joy in what they're doing and joy in the victory of finding a safe-hold or in taking out some walkers," Cohan says. "She still stops to smell the roses when she can but it's ruthless and violent. The group before was on the road but now she's joined them on this and they're much more overwhelmed with the amount of walkers. She's still a farm girl at her core but she's seen a lot of death."

Squirrel-loving Daryl, meanwhile, will face a different challenge as the group adjusts to life without one of its biggest guardians: Shane (Jon Bernthal).

"With the turn of how things are going with the apocalypse, he's opening himself up to people and being respected in other ways and finding reasons to fight for certain people and be apart of a group," Reedus says. "It's a big deal for him. With Shane being gone, there's more responsibilities … but Daryl doesn't want the responsibility of taking over a group, he's just trying to fit in."

Check out two exclusive photos from the upcoming third season of The Walking Dead, as well as a new teaser, below, and hit the comments with how you think Maggie and Daryl will fare in their new roles.